Dr Emma Halliday

Research Interests

Dr Emma Halliday is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Health and Medicine with a background in history and expertise in qualitative methods for policy evaluation and public health research.

She is a co-lead investigator for the PHIRST initiative based at Liverpool and Lancaster Universities, providing responsive evaluation support for public health interventions in local government. She also works with the NIHR School for Public Health Research, a collaboration of eight leading academic centres in England, and the ARC North west Coast Research Collaboration (ARC NWC).

Emma is a co-investigator on NIHR funded studies evaluating the Preston Wealth Building Model and the Communities in Control study, an evaluation of the Lottery's Big Local initiative rolled out in 150 English neighbourhoods. Her research also focuses on the ways in which particular localities are affected by stigma and how this influences health. She has led a review of media reporting and a narrative synthesis of qualitative evidence on residents’ accounts of stigma. Previous work with colleagues at Liverpool University involved an evaluation of the impact of leisure entrance charges on physical activity levels in the north west of England, which featured in an NIHR themed review on physical activity.

Her PhD investigated medical influences on mental health treatment and care in late nineteenth century Scotland (the ‘hospitalization movement’)and she has also published on the role of female volunteers in mental health settings during this period.

In 2018 she was awarded funding to pilot creative approaches to knowledge exchange and research dissemination using art/storytelling and comics in collaboration with Lancaster University’s graphic novels and comics network. The project won a North West Coast Research and Innovation Award in 2019. Her poem Burnt Out about stress and mental health among NHS professionals featured in the anthology – These are the Hands in 2020.